Bonaventura Peeters the Elder, Seascape with Sailors Sheltering from a Rainstorm

There's no question about the Peabody Essex Museum's unwavering love of all things nautical. How many other museums employ a curator of maritime art and history (in this case, Daniel Finamore)? Opening June 13, in its only American venue, "THE GOLDEN AGE OF DUTCH SEASCAPES" will present 70 paintings by 15th- and 16th-century Dutch masters enamored of big ships and the aquatic bodies they sailed through.

Organized by the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the show was an easy sell to the Peabody Essex, which in the past three years has hosted three sea-centric exhibitions ("To The Ends of the Earth: Painting the Polar Landscape," "Sketched at Sea," and "The Yachting Photography of Willard B. Jackson"). This show, however, raises the bar, with work created "in the time of Rembrandt and Vermeer . . . during the peak years of Dutch achievement between 1600 and 1700."

"Dutch Seascapes" concentrates on the moment when the Netherlands' painters — here also including Ludolf Backhuysen, Jan Porcellis, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Simon de Vlieger — began to focus attention to light and color on harbor settings, maritime narratives, and oceanic weather conditions. Bonaventura Peeters the Elder's Seascape with Sailors Sheltering from a Rainstorm (1640) has bands of sun extending from black clouds amid rolling waves and a remarkably dark palette — casting light, so to speak, on the treacherous conditions men endured for the sake of trade and discovery. The techniques used in these works, the museum points out, later served as the foundation for maritime work currently in the collection of the Peabody Essex.

Opening June 20 at the PEM will be "TRASH MENAGERIES," an exhibition of art made with discarded and recycled materials, each in the shape of — you guessed it — an animal. Using miscellaneous electronic parts, old cigarette filters, and other found objects (many from their back yards), the 24 artists have created sculptural works that resemble camels, butterflies, dogs, and the like. The result not so casually evokes the hot-button polemic of environmental impact while demonstrating that junk, in any state, is junk (but it can also be a bunny). The show and related events (which include a screening of WALL•E) are geared toward kids, but parents will have fun explaining what a carbon footprint is and why their child can't see it.

Art in the air conditioning From Picasso to William "Shrek" Steig's cartoons, and surfer photos to a Twilight Zone toy store, New England offers art worth traveling to this summer. Here we round up the best in the region, no matter the weather or your artistic inclinations.

Beauty and the East Gallery-goers with an affinity for art from Asia will have plenty of reason for excitement with a handful of enticing shows this winter.

States of the art In New England, where you can't swing a sack of cranberries without hitting a venerable cultural institution, anyone with access to a car (or even a subway pass) can scope out these topnotch art museums.

Great walls "Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection" at Salem's Peabody Essex Museum opens with a pair of interesting choices.

Power plays Some weeks back, I got to listen to Brown University archæology professor Stephen Houston pronounce the throaty, staccato sounds of Maya hieroglyphs carved across a six-foot-wide limestone panel.

Fresh fruit and vegetables The bleakest months of New England winter are ahead of us, so the prospect of leaving your toasty house to see art may not be at the top of your to-do list.

Pottery, Potter, mummies, and a 'Rare Bird' The art of 2000 BC Egypt, visions from the Iraq War and AIDS activism, and the magic of a digital technology and Harry Potter make up the highlights of Boston's autumn art calendar.

Peabody rising Could the Peabody Essex Museum be the Boston area’s most exciting art museum right now?

Modern times Does Jen Mergel's appointment mean that the MFA is getting serious about contemporary art?

DISCOTECHNIQUE | June 11, 2009 Break out your hottest moves — a forthcoming exhibition in South Boston asserts that the path to abstraction could go through dancing.

MARITIME AFTER TIME | June 03, 2009 There's no question about the Peabody Essex Museum's unwavering love of all things nautical. How many other museums employ a curator of maritime art and history (in this case, Daniel Finamore)?

STAYCATION | May 28, 2009 With some contemporary-art spaces holding off on summer programming, June's First Friday celebration at the Harrison Avenue galleries may be the strongest one until the fall season, when both the traffic and the collectors return.